Subs And Satellites

New Attitudes Toward Military Hardware Take Shape

November 26, 1992

Two recent news stories sum up some of the changes that have occurred in the world since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Russian President Boris Yeltsin, while visiting South Korea, announced that Russia might stop building submarines.

And the U.S. government is considering requests from at least three countries that want to buy spy satellites.

Submarines and spy satellites serve well as symbols of the suspense and high technology of the Cold War. As military tools, both are indispensable. Has the world changed so much that they can be discontinued or shared?

Yes and no. Russia has no business using its limited resources trying to maintain a fleet of submarines. The Cold War is over. Russia lost. It should concentrate on establishing a stable, open-market economy.

The United States, which still has obligations as the world's only superpower, will find it hard enough to devote the resources necessary to build and maintain a submarine force, and its economic situation is far superior to that of Russia's.

Yeltsin's announcement came as a surprise to other Russian leaders, and it may turn out to be premature. The security of Yeltsin's position is uncertain, and policies he pronounces one week could be reversed the next. But in this case, he's acting in the best interest of Russia and a world that does not need competing submarine forces.

The world is not so safe, however, that the United States should be selling its best technology in the form of spy satellites.

We can share information gathered by the satellites with other countries. But in the absence of any compelling need to share the technology, let's keep it at home, just in case the Cold War or something like it were to heat up.